Munich?” I ask.
“As we understand it, the prisoners from Auschwitz-Birkenau, at the end of the war, went mostly to two camps: Bergen-Belsen and Dachau,” the commander explains. “For Dachau, the city it’s nearest is Munich.”
“Why not Bergen-Belsen? Is that also near Munich?”
Commander Kuznetsov looks confused, but it’s Dima he turns to, not me, asking him something in Russian. Dima answers him softly, lowering his voice to almost a whisper, his eyes darting periodically over to mine. There’s something I don’t like in the language of his body—something protective but also secret.
“What are you telling him?” I ask, my voice rising. Then, to Gosia, “What are they saying, Gosia?”
Gosia purses her lips, reticent to translate. “The commander said—he said that—he was made to think Abek was not in Bergen-Belsen.”
I shake my head in confusion. “Why would he think that?”
Again, the three of them exchange glances I don’t understand. I pick up my cup and bang it against the floor to get their attention. “Who would tell him that?”
After an eternity, Dima drags his face to meet mine. “I tell him that. I tell him Abek was not in Bergen-Belsen. Because when I write the camp, he is not in their records.”
“When you wrote to—” I repeat the words slowly, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. “When you wrote to the camp?”
“The helpers,” he tries to explain. “The soldiers who are there now.”
“But you knew there was a chance he could be in this place and you already wrote to them? Without telling me?”
Dima flushes a deep red. “He was not there,” Dima continues. “So I did not want—so I did not want to worry you, Zofia. I am trying to help. You need to rest. I thought, if I could find him for you—”
Gosia and the commander are staring at their plates, trying to disappear themselves from this exchange. Dima is staring at me, pleading.
“Did you hear from Dachau, too?” I ask. “Or Birkenau? Damnit, Dima, is there anything else you’re keeping from me?”
“Don’t swear, Zofia. You are not a girl who swears.”
“I’ll swear if I want to,” I insist, tears filling my eyes.
He shakes his head quickly. No, he’s saying, no, those places didn’t write back.
Is this betrayal? Is it betrayal if he was trying to help me? If he did it in secret, but the goal was to find my brother? He meant well. I tell myself that. He was trying to help. And, he did help, actually. He found a place where Abek was not.
Next to me, Gosia slides her hand across the floor until her fingers are splayed over mine. “The commander said Munich because a lot of the prisoners from Dachau, after the war, ended up going to another camp near Munich.” She exchanges a few words with Commander Kuznetsov before continuing. “A different kind of camp,” she clarifies.
And now she’s speaking not in Russian or German or even Polish, but Yiddish. The language of our kitchens, of our private family time, the language acknowledging that the commander and Dima are not part of what happened to us. “A big refugee camp run by the United Nations. There are several. They’re for Jews who can’t get back to their homes or who haven’t been able to find their families.”
“And it’s where Abek is likely to be if he was evacuated from Birkenau.”
She takes her hand away. “That’s what he said. It’s called—” She switches back to German. “What is it called?”
“Foehrenwald,” the commander says. He looks relieved to offer a piece of information that won’t cause me to be upset. “It’s impossible to know from here, though, whether your brother is in this camp. The staff is small and overworked. From what we’ve heard, it’s barely organized—it’s thousands of refugees, coming in and going out.”
“Impossible to know from here,” I repeat. Now I’ve switched to Polish, but Dima, to my right, is shaking his head before I even say a few words.
“Abek will come here,” he says. “That was your plan.”
Sosnowiec was the plan. Staying together was the plan. Finding him was the plan.
But what if he forgot the plan? He was only nine. What if he forgot our address? What if it’s not a place he knows anymore? What if he’s stuck, or hurt, or in a hospital as I was?
“Did you know about this place?” I ask Dima sharply. “Is this another place you were keeping from me?”
“No, I promise,” he says. “I didn’t know about this camp. We can write to